Endurance
The morning Pom hunt continued.
However, it took quite a bit of time to hunt down 20 Poms, and just when I was close to finishing, time was up. I had to head to the morning homeroom.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Today's Point Mission]
Let's work hard every day!
"Pom Hunt"
Pom Hunt: 14/20
[Consecutive Days] Day 15
[Steady Rank] Silver
[Point Multiplier] 2.0x ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I decided to continue after school.
I threw away the jerky, returned to the dormitory, changed into my uniform, and went to school.
Lately, I've been spending more time listening to classes seriously and reading, which seems to have developed my ability to think.
Is this the power of education...? Maybe I'm actually smart... No, no, I shouldn't be conceited. I've made the same mistake many times by being overconfident. I must remain humble, or I'll fail again.
I spent another diligent day at school. Having no friends is perfect for studying.
After school, I thought about heading to the pseudo-dungeon for more Pom hunting but decided to go to the training room first.
I hadn't felt like using the training building to exhaust my stamina because of the heavier point missions like "Outer Perimeter," but "Pom Hunt" was a relatively light point mission. I had enough energy to focus on training.
"Akatani, you came."
As usual, Isaiah Wirt was running on the treadmill at an unbelievable speed setting. If I increased my agility, could I be like her?
I started placing plates on the barbell for bench pressing. I suddenly realized something.
"Wirt, does weight training increase the strength stat for an explorer?"
"It would be nice if it did."
So it doesn't, huh.
"The only ways to increase blessings are through leveling up, anomalous substances, or equivalent mysteries."
"Yeah, that's what we learned in class."
"Why do you always train so hard, Wirt?"
"If a person blessed has a weak body, they can't fully receive the blessing."
So, given the same stats, a trained person is better than someone with a lot of body fat or a skinny frame. It's about the physical abilities of a person without blessings.
If that's the case, I might not be fully utilizing my 30,000 strength. No, it's definitely not fully utilized.
My natural physical ability is at most average for a high school freshman. My skeleton and muscles might be somewhat reinforced, but still.
I need to train my strength so it's not underestimated.
I lay back on the bench, made a bridge, lifted my back slightly, and started with light weights. After ten reps, I added more plates and did another ten.
When I added more plates, the total weight of the barbell reached 300 kg. I hadn't hit my strength limit yet.
"Akatani... you're amazing."
Wirt stopped running on the treadmill and was looking at me with wide eyes as I added more plates.
"My strength is growing too."
"What's your strength?"
"30,000."
"Haha, that's incredible."
Wirt laughed cheerfully.
As expected of the Silver Saint. She wasn't surprised even when I mentioned my specialized strength.
It felt embarrassing to boast. Someone like Wirt might have all stats at a million. I should stop boasting about stats...
"So, what's your real strength?"
"I told you, it's 30,000."
"Okay. What's your actual strength? Enough jokes."
"No, really..."
"You insist on this joke, huh."
"?"
"Well, it's amazing. I'm happy that your hard work is paying off, Akatani. But here's a tip. When you train, imagine not relying on the blessing. Close your eyes, sense the mystery, feel the power of Adams reinforcing you, and then imagine breaking away from it."
Following her words, I closed my eyes.
Suddenly, I felt my hand being softly held.
Startled, I opened my eyes to see Wirt's emotionless face right in front of me.
"Whoa!?"
"What's wrong?"
"N-no, that should be my line."
"Focus."
Seriously, stop it, it's too stimulating for a high school student.
Ah, Wirt's hands are soft and smell nice.
I closed my eyes again, trying to concentrate. Impossible.
"Feel the power enveloping you."
"I... I don't understand at all."
"Well, that's normal at first. With practice, you'll be able to intentionally weaken the blessing. If you want to strengthen your natural physical abilities, the key is how much you can weaken the blessing. Good luck, Akatani, I'm rooting for you."
Wirt got up, took her towel and water bottle, and left the training room.
I raised my hand, still feeling the lingering sensation of her touch.
I, Akatani Makoto, had my hand held by Isaiah Wirt, the Silver Saint.
It was probably the happiest moment of my life.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Today's Point Mission]
Let's work hard every day!
"Pom Hunt"
Pom Hunt: 20/20
[Reward]
2 Skill Points Earned!
[Consecutive Days] Day 16
[Steady Rank] Silver
[Point Multiplier] 2.0x ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
After tormenting my muscles in the training room, I continued the morning's Pom hunt in the pseudo-dungeon. I destroyed the Pomeranians on the second floor with my big, hard, black thing and completed today's point mission.
According to what I learned in class, anomalous substances are just that—anomalous and hard to break. The "Heavy Ball" is no exception, being extremely durable.
No matter how much I launch it with "Fly," it shows no sign of breaking.
I made a great purchase.
━━━━━━『Skill Tree』━━━━━━━ [Skill Tree]
Tree Level: 1
Skill Points: 2
Point Mission: Completed
[Skill Menu]
"Basic Stamina"
Usable: 4
"Basic Magic"
Usable: 3
"Basic Defense"
Usable: 5
"Advanced Strength"
Usable: 2
"Basic Skill"
Usable: 2
"Basic Intelligence"
Usable: 5
"Basic Resistance"
Usable: 5
"Basic Agility"
Usable: 5
"Basic Mystery"
Usable: 5
"Basic Spirit"
Usable: 5
"Hold"
Usable: 1
"Bend"
Usable: 1
[Completed Skill]
"Applied Strength"
Usable: 0
"Basic Strength"
Usable: 0
"Harden"
Usable: 0
"Softening"
Usable: 0
"Stick"
Usable: 0
"Fly"
Usable: 0
"Pull"
Usable: 0 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What should I use my points on today?
With excitement, I finished allocating my skill points.
After careful consideration, I unlocked "Basic Magic" and "Hold" today.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Status]
Akatani Makoto
Level: 0
HP: 34 / 100
MP: 30/ 300
Defense: 0
Strength: 30,000
Skill: 300
Intelligence: 0
Resistance: 0
Agility: 0
Mystery: 0
Spirit: 0
[Skill]
"Basic Stamina" "Basic Magic" x3 "Basic Skill" x3 "Advanced Strength" x3 "Harden" "Softening" "Stick" "Fly" "Pull" "Hold"
[Equipment]
"Skill Tree" ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
My HP and MP are in tatters thanks to the Pom hunt.
I was nearly the one being hunted, but that's part of the fun.
I've recently come to think that having more MP is always good.
I ran out of MP during the Pom hunt, knowing I'd need some left to test the new skill I unlocked later.
By the end, I was intentionally letting the Pomeranians bite my arm, grabbing them by the neck when they stopped moving, and smashing them against the wall. It's a last resort when resources run out.
Since my defense is low and I have little HP, I want to defeat them from a distance, but without MP, that's not possible. I have to cut what can be cut.
It's painful, scary, and dangerous, so I'll allocate points to magic for a while to increase MP.
"Let's try using 'Hold.'"
I deactivated the mode and lightly tossed the iron ball up.
Having used various skills, I instinctively knew how to use "Hold."
"Skill activation—'Hold.'"
I raised my hand towards the falling iron ball, applying the effect.
The iron ball slowed down. It didn't completely stop, but slowly landed on the floor. It was more like slowing it down, no, maybe it's a force to "maintain the original state" of something in motion.
Thud!
"What?"
There was a sudden loud noise.
The floor collapsed, and the iron ball got embedded.
What just happened?
"Hmm? This... could it be...?"
I had a thought.
An evil idea.
I couldn't wait to test it out immediately.
The next day.
With an eager nose, drooling from my mouth, I ran to the training building shouting, "Pom Pom!"
"So noisy in the morning."
"Shihohime Kamika...!"
"Why are you so excited?"
Darn, she saw my embarrassing moment.
I can't let her go without doing anything.
"Shihohime, don't move, okay? Whatever you do, don't move."
"I feel like this has happened before."
Shihohime stared at me, seemingly not intending to move. How admirable.
"Skill activation—'Hold.'"
The iron ball rose from my side.
"See! See this!?"
"What is it?"
I couldn't help grinning as I faced the puzzled Shihohime.
"Now... Shihohime Kamika, don't resist. Stay still."
"Eh?"
I put the iron ball down slowly. It landed softly on the ground.
And then, I slowly moved it towards Shihohime's foot.
"Heh, uh, um, Akatani, what are you trying to do?"
"Don't move, okay? It's important."
"W-wait, what are you doing? What's important?"
The iron ball reached Shihohime's foot.
"Okay, now stay still, don't move, don't resist, don't move, don't..."
"Don't repeat it! Just tell me what you're going to do!"
Shihohime's voice was high-pitched, trembling. She seemed scared.
I held back my excitement and placed my hand on the iron ball. With a deep breath, I activated the skill.
"Skill activation—'Hold.'"
With that, I released my hand from the iron ball. It stayed in place, held by the skill.
Shihohime's eyes widened.
"Wh-what... did you do?"
I couldn't contain my excitement anymore. I explained proudly.
"With this skill, I can make objects stay in their original state! If it's falling, I can stop it from falling! If it's moving, I can stop it from moving! So, if I put this iron ball on you and use the skill, you won't be crushed!"
Shihohime's face turned pale.
"Y-you're... insane..."
"I know! Isn't it amazing!?"
"No, no, no, no! Get this off me! Now!"
She screamed, her voice echoing in the training building.
I released the skill, and the iron ball fell to the ground with a thud.
Shihohime glared at me, her face red with anger and fear.
"You're crazy... absolutely crazy..."
But I couldn't help feeling triumphant. I had discovered a new way to use my skill.
And I couldn't wait to test it out in real combat.